Musical Director Malcolm Green says “It is an extremely popular work which over the years has been used to advertise many products on the television. The Irish Rugby Team plays it as they make their entrance on to the field. I don’t know of any other piece that grabs us from the very first chord with the sheer visceral force of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana; No wonder the Dept of Education, in their wisdom, included it as a set work on the Junior Cert in Music this year”.

With the timpani blazing and 190 singers in full voice the audience will be taken on a wild musical journey. The variety within the work is staggering. The music alternates between chivalric love poetry, assertive Bavarian heartiness, effervescent joie de vivre, and the shattering force of the chorus of Fate surrounding the whole work.

Carmina Burana was an instantaneous success at its first performance in Frankfurt in 1937, and Carl Orff found himself lionised overnight at the age of 42 after many years as a teacher of music.

The work is framed by a symbol from antiquity, the wheel of fortune perpetually turning, bringing alternate luck and ill fortune. There are three main sections: Mans encounter with Nature, his encounter with the joys of wine, and finally his encounters with love. At the heart of the work might be said to be the “life force”.

The text is based on 200 medieval poems written by monks and wandering student scholars. The authors were evidently brimming over with youthful anger, extremely earthly desires and determination to accept the challenge of life, and delight in parody. This is a concert not to be missed. Limerick Choral union last performed this work 40 years ago in 1969.

Tickets are now on sale in the University Concert Hall priced at €25 and €22 for concessions.
Tel 061.331549 or www.uch.ie